Rabbit Proof Fence - Stolen Generation

timbo81 said:

ya I gave you that link before the website crashed.


Peter Howson and Des Moore: A Rabbit-proof Fence Full of Holes

I think it's a disgrace the movie was even made and portrayed as truth when you are alerted to the real facts.

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The film depicts the children being forcibly removed---"torn away"---from their mother/aunt by a police officer.
Film viewers, however, should recognise that major claims of forcible removal of half-caste children have been comprehensively rejected in three court cases. In the Cubillo-Gunner cases in the Northern Territory, Justice O'Loughlin noted mixed-race children removed at an early age could have no personal knowledge of events and would rely on stories told them.

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In reality, however, only a small proportion of half-caste children were being separated when the rabbit proof fence girls were removed from their mother/aunt. Neville's evidence to the 1934 Royal Commission showed that, in the first two and a quarter years of the 1930s, of the 1067 admitted to the settlement from which the girls "escaped", only 64 unattended or orphan children were wards of the Department, being removals from their mothers. Neville told the Commission that "there are scores of (other) children ...who should be taken away and placed in a settlement" but that available accommodation was insufficient. By implication, only those judged most in need of care were removed.

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bliz said:

Sorry, the argumkents in the link don't hold water.

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The courts rejected the children's claim of forcible removal, not because it did not happen, but because the courts felt the children were too young to remember. Are we to belive mothers would have happily given up there children if there was no law requiring it?

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So if it was only a small number of children that were removed, and only those with the greatest "need" it was OK? This reminds me of the cartoon where parents return from a night out to be greeted by a witch. The father says: "You mean we hired you to babysit our children, and you ate BOTH of them?" As if only eating one would have been acceptable.

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timbo81 said:

ok well you haven't provided anything, I think I trust a govt. enquiry over campire stories.

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bliz said:

You believe a government enquiry into it's own actions? Can I interest you in buying the Brooklyn Bridge?

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